PEN World Voices Festival - Meditations on Exile & Blurring Borders

Date

Time

Location

Apr. 20

La Maison Française will again participate in “The NYU Literary Mews” section of the PEN WORLD VOICES FESTIVAL. The theme this year is Resist and Reimagine.

6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.

Meditations on Exile

With Xiaolu Guo, Dunya Mikhail, and Hossein M. Abkenar. Moderated by Dinaw Mengestu.
Being forced to leave one’s country involves profound physical dislocation as well as the emotional upheaval of being separated from family, friends, and the very roots of our existence. Often accompanying this change is the need to adjust to a new place, the strangeness and the stresses of crossing into a different world. Each panelist has experienced this. They talk about why they needed to upend their former lives and how they have adapted to their new ones.

7:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.

Blurring Borders: Reimagining Strangers

With Raquel Abend, Négar Djavadi, and Ibi Zoboi. Moderated by Rebecca Falkoff.
Through the lens of their literary work and personal perspectives, international authors consider society reimagined in the context of global immigration, migratory movements, political exiles, and the challenges of assimilation and integration.

Raquel Abend is the author of three poetry books: Una trinitaria encendida, Sobre las fábricas, and Lengua Mundana. She has also published two novels, Cuarto azul and Andor, and is the coauthor of the book Los días pasan y las formas regresan. She is the editor of two anthologies: La cajita cabrona and Topos mecánicos. She received her MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish from NYU. She teaches at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (CUNY).

Négar Djavadi was born in Iran in 1969. She arrived in France at the age of eleven, having crossed the mountains of Kurdistan on horseback with her mother and sister. Disoriental is her first novel. She lives in Paris.

Ibi Zoboi holds an MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her debut YA novel American Street, is a National Book Award Finalist and New York Times Notable Book of 2017. Her second YA novel, Pride, is due out in Fall 2018.

Rebecca Falkoff is an Assistant Professor of Italian Studies at New York University. She has published essays on Elena Ferrante, Carlo Emilio Gadda, and Giorgio Manganelli and is currently completing a manuscript on hoarding.

PEN World Voices is America’s premier international literary festival. It was founded by Salman Rushdie, Esther Allen, and Michael Roberts in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, with the aim of broadening channels of dialogue between the United States and the world—a mission that, today, has never been more relevant. The complete PEN festival schedule (April 16-22) is available at penworldvoices.org.